In an oil well, casing is typically installed to withstand various pressures which may be present in an open hole or wellbore and to stabilize the pipes or tubing used for drilling. Typically, casing hangs straight down in vertical wells or lies on the low side of the hole in deviated wells. During drilling operations, thermal or pressure loads within a wellbore may produce compressive loads which, if sufficiently high, will cause the initial well configuration to become unstable. However, since the tubing is confined within the casing (or alternatively an open hole), the tubing can deform into another stable configuration, which may be a helical or coil shape in a vertical well or a lateral “S” shaped configuration in a deviated well. The change to the new configurations caused by the deformed tubing is known as “buckling.”
In tubing and casing design, the accurate analysis of buckling is important for several reasons. First, buckling generates bending stresses not present in the original configuration. If the stresses in the original (i.e., “unbuckled”) configuration were near yield, additional stress could produce failure in the tubing, including permanent plastic deformation called “corkscrewing.” Second, buckling causes movement in oil well tubing. That is, buckled tubing (which is coiled) is shorter than straight tubing, and this is an important consideration if the tubing is not fixed. Third, tubing buckling causes the relief of compressive axial loads when the casing surrounding the tubing is fixed.
Previously, models have been developed for analyzing buckling in wells, however, these models suffer from several drawbacks when applied to deviated wells. One drawback with previous models is that tubing bending stress due to buckling will be overestimated for deviated wells. Another drawback with previous models as applied to deviated wells is that they over predict tubing movement. Still another drawback with previous models is that tubing compliance is overestimated, which may greatly underestimate the axial loads able to be withstood by the surrounding casing. It is with respect to these considerations and others that the various embodiments of the present invention have been made.